


Out of breath

by GonEwiththeWolveS



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Attempted Suicide, Enemies to Lovers, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, M/M, Post-Avengers (2012), Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, kind of?, more like self-sacrifice, suffocation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:21:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26004100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GonEwiththeWolveS/pseuds/GonEwiththeWolveS
Summary: After New York, Steve and Tony get sent together on a team-building mission that turns out not to be as simple as expected. Now, Tony's suit is out of commission and they're stranded in a frozen land with close to sub-zero temperatures. Tony himself is not that good for wear either.Shit has certifiably hit the fan.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Kudos: 34





	Out of breath

**Author's Note:**

> *Another* wip? is she crazy?  
> Possibly. But honestly, I've been in a kind of writing slump lately, which just won't do cause I've got pressing things to write but no motivation, so I thought I'd work a little on something new and fun to see if I got the creation juices up and flowing again.  
> This will be a small thing, probably three chapters at the most, I'm not going crazy with plot, just handwaving a bunch of things cause I want the boys to suffer muahaha
> 
> I listed what I could think of as triggering in the tags but it's kind of late and I'm tired so if you think I missed something please let me know so I can correct it

Tony leans back in the quinjet pilot seat, examining the schematics of the warehouse in the holographic screen for the fifth time today. It still continues to be mindlessly boring and completely uninteresting. 

He gets that Fury just wanted to send them on a bogus mission as an excuse for ‘team bonding’ or whatever -- since him and Rogers are apparently the only two chips not falling into place in his carefully constructed plan regarding the aftermath of the New York incident -- but couldn't he at least have assigned them something a bit more challenging? Or engaging? Like at all?

Jarvis’ scans had already cleared the building. There’s no one inside, and there hasn’t been any activity here for at least a week -- same time the supposed energy pulse that came across Shield’s radar occured. This whole thing was a rookie assignment, as in the stuff Shield probably saved for its interns. Why was he doing this again? It certainly wasn’t for Rogers’ scintillating conversational skills -- he could swear the man was as charismatic as a bag of bricks. 

Sure, they’d left things off on an ok stance after New York, but the tentative truce didn’t seem to last long at all. Probably a consequence of continued exposure to Tony Stark. Honestly, if Shield wanted them to get along they should have gone the complete opposite route and minimized Rogers’ interactions with him. 

It’s not like Tony tried to antagonize the guy on purpose -- ok, that’s a lie, he totally did - but come on, one couldn’t get pricklier than Rogers. The man was like a walking talking billboard for righteousness. Too bad he couldn’t fit a sense of humor in his square personality.

Speaking of, he can hear one very spangled american hero rustling around in the back of the quinjet, probably gathering supplies to fit in his ‘utility belt’ -- turns out Rogers hadn’t taken too kindly to Tony calling it a fanny pack (even though it absolutely is).

He puts the schematics away and turns the screens off before lowering the ramp of the jet. Immediately, gelid air rushes inside the aircraft, lowering the nice toasty weather in the cockpit to almost sub-zero temperatures. He feels the cold permeate his very bones, his breaths starting to condense in the air in mere seconds. 

Did Fury really have to send them to fucking Alaska? They could have done plenty of team bonding in New York, where it’s nice and warm, heaters exist, and he has hot coffee on demand. 

Fuck, it’s cold. 

They need to move. The sooner they get this done, the sooner they can put this pathetic mission behind them and get gone. They’re just burning daylight by this point, of which there isn’t much here to begin with. There’s no use in sitting around twiddling his thumbs waiting for Rogers to gear up for a fight that’s not even going to happen -- well, assuming they don’t piss each other off and end up trading punches themselves. In forethought that might not be such a bad outcome; blowing off some steam -- that’s good for morale, no? 

He pushes off from the chair, curling his hands up in the sleeves of his sweater so his fingers don’t turn into icicles, and crosses the cargo hold of the quinjet, grabbing his armor suitcase from the shelf.

Rogers has his back to him, most of his uniform already on. He has his cowl resting on the benches next to his belt, and is rummaging through one of the gear boxes. 

Tony opens the suitcase and lets the automated mechanics do the rest. As soon as the armor closes around him, he feels a blast of warmth wash over him, the heating system instantly activating on power up. He lets out a relieved sigh, opening and closing his hands inside the gauntlets to fasten the warming. Bless Jarvis and his ability to read situational context. 

“Jarvis, if I could, I’d kiss you right now.” 

“Glad to be of assistance, sir,” Jarvis’ reassuringly familiar voice rings out inside the hub, a note of amusement sharp and audible, as the screens light up. 

“Anything change in the scans, J?”

“No, sir. The building appears to remain unoccupied. I do not detect any traces of telecommunications, radiation or power surges in the vicinity,” the AI recounts, pulling up scan results to illustrate his calculations.

“Alright, should be smooth sailing then. Tell Rhodey I’ll make it back in time for that dinner he keeps pestering me about.”

“Yes, sir.”

With that out of the way, Tony turns around and heads for the ramp. Time to get this show on the road.

“What are you doing?” Rogers’ voice sounds from behind as soon as he steps foot outside. How does he already sound mad? 

“What does it look like, Rogers? We’re not paid to sit around and look pretty -- well, I’m not paid at all, but that’s besides the point. I’m going in.”

“We’re not ready yet,” Rogers barks out, and Tony can almost hear the snarl in the words. 

He turns around, surprised at the spontaneous outburst of aggressive behaviour. What the hell? Usually he has to work a bit harder to get this much of a rise out of Rogers. He looks riled too, all two hundred pounds of muscle wound up and ready to strike. 

He frowns, annoyance of his own brewing up to the surface in response. A gust of wind shakes the trees outside and Rogers bristles harder, his gaze steeling with the cold-- the _cold_. Understanding washes over Tonyr, making him momentarily forget his affronted surprise at Rogers’ behaviour. So _that_ was what this was all about. 

“Stay in the quinjet, then,” Tony bites out, rolling his eyes as he turns his back and starts heading towards the building’s entrance. “Close the ramp and turn up the heaters, I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

“Stark!” he hears Rogers’ angered shout from behind him, rising in volume as he ignores the calls and continues forward. “Get back here!”

He reaches the warehouse’s heavy double doors and pushes them open, surveying the interior as he steps inside. It’s as empty as he was expecting, dust gathered on the floor and floating in the air, a few odd shoe prints scattered about. It’s basically just an empty space with a few windows and cracked walls -- due for a repaint. Nothing in the least bit exciting. What a bore.

He sighs and walks further inside the room, looking around for any clues to what might explain the energy surge picked up by Shield.

The sound of the entrance doors opening again echoes loudly in the empty space and Tony groans, hearing heavy determined footsteps catch up to him. 

“Who the hell do you think you are, Stark?” Rogers’ incensed voice argues as the man appears by his side, eyes sparking with self-righteous anger. ”You can’t go off half-cocked without a plan anymore! This is the whole point of the training missions--”

“--Rogers,” Tony cuts him off, already tired of the lecturing monologue. “You see anybody in here? It’s a grab and bag, you should have stayed in the jet.”

“That’s not your call to make!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Tony drones on, holding up an armored hand in a dismissive wave. “We all know you’re in charge.”

Rogers keeps nagging him about it, but Tony tunes him out, running a scan of the room’s interior. It comes up clean, like _everything_ has, and he moves on, heading towards the inner door that leads further inside the building. 

If this whole thing turns out to be a dud, he’s gonna enact some sweet sweet vengeance on that slimy pirate-slash-ninja — a fish in his car’s air conditioning? Stash his eye-patch in the freezer -- does he even take it off? he can’t sleep in it, right? that can’t be comfortable -- meh, who knows? The possibilities are endless.

Rogers is on his tail, but he doesn’t sound happy about it, judging by his furious tone of voice. 

Tony keeps moving forward, clearing the hallways one by one. He checks a few rooms that look like they once served as storage closets, but they all have one thing in common — they’re completely empty. Nothing in this godforsaken frozen land justifies the energy surge that brought them here in the first place. He’s starting to think the whole thing was just an excuse made up by Fury to force them to be in the same enclosed space for over ten hours.

There’s one last room he hasn’t checked, at the end of the corridor he finds himself in currently. The set of doors to access it looks as hefty as the entrance ones, so maybe this wasn’t all for naught.

“Well, hello there. This looks promising. J?”

“Still nothing, sir. Although, I should alarm you that the doors and wall paneling of that chamber seem to be made of a fortified concrete mix not stated in the building schematics.”

The warehouse plant had shown the next room as another simple division of the building, but if he were conducting super secret bad-guy power experiments, he would definitely do it in the fortified heavy concrete vault omitted in the plants. 

“Seems we’ve hit the metaphorical goldmine. Rogers?”

He hears Rogers making his way down the hall to him, the telltale sign of vibranium cutting through the air telling him that the man just retrieved his oversized frisbee from his back harness hold. 

“Don’t get too excited, you eager beaver. This room’s as deserted as the rest of the building,” Tony drawls, letting a smirk tug at his lips behind the iron man mask. 

Rogers glowers at him in response, all coiled muscles and sparking blue eyes. “We still need a plan. It could be a trap.”

“Sure, how about this? I go in, you stay here, monitor the… dust bunnies. If I run into trouble, I’ll signal you.”

“No.”

“No? Rogers, you’re killing me here. Let’s just get whatever we came for so we can be on our merry way home.”

Rogers lets out a sharp breath that almost sounds like a growl and walks forward towards the door, closing the straps of his shield around his arm with a forceful frustrated yank of the fabric. Good thing Tony fortified that stuff to resist superserumed temper tantrums. 

He lets Rogers take point, moving behind him as the super soldier pushes the doors open and walks inside the room.

Tony follows, enters the chamber, brings his arm repulsors up just for precaution and sees… nothing. Absolutely nothing that would explain their presences here. There’s a single table in the center of the room, some kind of small circular object resting on it.

Rogers has paused in front of him, his confusion so obvious it’s almost audible in the air. Tony powers the repulsors down and lets his arms fall back to his sides as he heads towards the table and the mystery device. 

“Jarvis?”

“Scanning, sir. The device doesn’t seem to be emitting any type of frequency or radiation.”

Another dead end. Great.

“What is it?” Rogers asks, appearing beside him.

“Nothing interesting, apparently,” Tony replies as he reaches an armored hand towards the device, picking it up. The thing is light, cylindrical and seemingly innocuous. They really came all the way to the frozen wilds for this? What a waste of time.

He juggles the device in one hand, throwing it up and catching it as it falls back down to his hand.

“You want to be more careful with that?” Rogers grumbles, throwing another cursory look around the room. It’s pointless. There’s nothing.

“You gotta lighten up, Roge--” he cuts himself off as he throws the device in the air a third time and hears a rattling sound from inside. 

Rogers whirls around to face him, regular scowl already planted on his face, and Tony holds up a hand to shut him up when he opens his mouth, doubtlessly to tear Tony a new one. 

“Sir?” Jarvis prompts at the same time that Rogers expresses his outrage, “ _You_ gotta start taking things more--” 

“--Rogers, _shut up_ ,” Tony barks out, emphasizing the command with a sharp wave of his hand. “What is it, J?”

“I just detected a signal being emitted from the device. I suspect motion may have activated it.” Jarvis words are punctuated by an audible _click_ originating fromsomewhere in the room. 

“Shit.”

“What was that?” Rogers asks, immediately on edge. He tenses visibly, head whirling around as he tries to pinpoint the source of the sound. 

“Jarvis?”

“Analyzing, sir.”

There’s another _click,_ loud in the empty room, and then another noise starts up. It sounds like a vacuum. If this is going where Tony thinks it’s going, they are very screwed. 

“ _Shit_.”

“What? _What is it_?”

“Jarvis, buddy. Tell me that’s not what I think it is,” Tony pleads, ignoring Rogers’ continuously increasing questions.

“I’m afraid so, sir,” Jarvis informs, regret evident in his voice. “I am detecting an alarming increase in air rarefaction. It appears the room is airtight and vacuum pumps are depleting the gas molecules in its interior,” he explains, bringing up a percentage countdown of the oxygen concentration on the hub. 

“Analyse the room’s structural integrity and give me a timeline, J.”

“From my calculated statistics, your best case scenario would be to combine efforts with captain Rogers and try to weaken the door frame, sir,” Jarvis relays, pulling up statistics and computations. “However, that course of action would take the minimum of five to six minutes to complete, and regrettably, you only have two until vacuum pumps completely deplete the room of oxygen and other air molecules.”

What? No, this can’t be happening. Not like this. He has to find a way to-- there has to be a way out of this.

The sound of the stupid vacuum is deafening in his ears. Did it get louder? Tony could swear it had gotten louder. And hadn’t Rogers been saying something? Tony can’t hear anything, not over that god awful ringing in his ears. He can’t even hear himself think-- he _needs to think_!

He stumbles a few steps back and closes his eyes, taking a deep centering breath. He needs to stop freaking out and examine the situation. There’s always a way out. It may not be desirable but there has to be.

If they do nothing, they’ll pass out in one minute, run out of air completely in two and, well, die immediately, really, if the air pumps continue running until the room is in vacuum. They aren't just pulling oxygen from the room, they’re pulling everything. Even Rogers couldn’t survive that.

This seems like a lot of trouble to go through just to kill them, though. There would've been easier ways. Which leads him to think that the point here is to incapacitate, not kill -- well, not kill Rogers, that is, since they’re probably not counting on getting Tony out of this alive. Rogers will last considerably longer than he will -- a few minutes more, but every second counts when it comes to oxygen deprivation -- and if they’re counting on opening the door to a passed out Rogers, they probably don’t have high hopes for Tony’s condition. 

So, the pumps have to stop. Probably at a low oxygen percentage, low enough to take them out fast and efficiently. Which means they still won’t have enough time even if they start now. 

He needs to buy them more time. If one of them is awake when they come through that door, they might stand a fighting chance.

Clarity floods his brain, sharp and sudden like a bolt of lightning, and he knows what he has to do. 

“Stark, _what_ is going on?” Rogers’ voice finally cuts through the noise in his head, urgent and agitated.

Tony turns his head to glance at him, takes note of the uneasy frown and tense posture, the damp look to his skin -- sweat? he’s already starting to feel it -- and steels himself. 

The noise stops. Oxygen concentration is at eight per cent. 

“Jarvis.”

“Sir?”

“Cut the air supply to the suit in one minute,” he orders, feeling surprisingly numb. There’s no intonation to his voice. He feels every bit the robot his armor makes him out to be.

“Sir, that is a direct violation of proto--”

“--Override life support protocol,” he interrupts Jarvis, in an almost automatic fashion. “Re-engage when the doors open.”

“What? Stark what the hell are you doing?” Rogers’ voice rings loudly in his ear as the man plants a hand on top of his armored shoulder and physically forces him to turn and face him. 

Tony blinks, swallows, and sets his jaw.

“Buying you time. When they come through those doors--”

“--Oh no, no, no. _No_. You don’t get to do this again--”

“--in about three minutes, you’re gonna be awake to fight them--”

“--Goddammit Stark,” Rogers all but shouts, everything about his posture screaming fury and offense. “Jarvis, reengage life support protocol.”

“I’m sorry, captain Rogers. You do not possess the necessary permissions to execute that command,” Jarvis’ voice echoes loudly in the room, replying to Rogers through the armor’s audio output. 

Rogers growls, letting go of his shoulder with a rough push backwards before storming towards the closed entrance doors. Tony stumbles a little before regaining his balance.

There’s a strange burning feeling in his chest, and his head feels impossibly heavy. So does his armor, now that he notices. It’s like a crushing weight on his shoulders. How does he usually manobrate this thing?

Rogers lifts his shield and brings it crashing down on the fortified steel door in an impressive display of strength and speed -- well, it _would_ have been impressive, if Tony was still fazed by that kind of thing (no offense to Roger’s superskills). 

It makes a small dent.

Tony sighs, and then the unprompted realization that this might be the last time he gets to do so brings a bit of a hysterical giggle to his lips. 

Rogers turns to shoot him an incredulous look. 

Right, he shouldn’t be laughing. Bad Tony. Read the room, Tony. This is life and death, Tony -- _his_ life and death, thank you very much. He should get to dictate how he feels about it. He’s gonna die, suffocating in his own armor, just like he should have last year in New York. The universe does find curious ways to turn on its head and leave him right back in the same shit situations over and over again, doesn't it? Isn’t that funny? No, it’s not. But, come on, just a little?

Another snicker escapes his lips. 

“You won’t make it in time, Rogers,” he hears himself say, feeling strangely disconnected from his body, like he’s floated above the room and watching all of this play out from somewhere below.

Rogers’ response is to growl and hit the door again. He’s awfully growly today. There’s a reason, though. What’s the reason? _Ohhh_ it’s the cold.

“It’s the cold,” he repeats, giggling like a lunatic.

Rogers stops his shield in the air, ready for another strike, to glance at Tony. The frown on his face has morphed into something else, something... concerned? Is that worry on Captain America’s face? For little old him?

The thought makes him laugh harder. But that’s wrong, isn’t it? He really shouldn’t be laughing. No, it’s inappropriate, _very_ inappropriate _._ So, why can’t he stop?

“Sir, you’re suffering the effects of oxygen deprivation,” Jarvis explains, sounding sad. Jarvis! He’s here, he’s-- no, wrong Jarvis. Person Jarvis is dead and buried. Tony went to the funeral, he should know. Maybe that’s why he’s sad. Do AI’s get sad? 

The air is heavier, or is it gravity that grew? Regardless, it’s too tiring to stay standing, so Tony lets himself drop to a sitting position on the ground. 

The floor is hard stone, it would probably feel cold and solid under his fingers, refreshing. He should take a gauntlet off and try it out. Oh, no, that’s right, he can’t. He has to stay inside and choke on his own breath. Will it hurt as much as the other times? He hopes not, but it probably will. That’s ok, he’s used to it.

There’s a muffled sound somewhere-- where… 

He tries to whip his head up, but he only manages a slow steady lift of his neck. It’s harder to move, it must be the armor-- it’s heavier, it is, that’s the problem. 

It’s Rogers, he’s in a low crouch in front of him. When did he get here? He was across the room a second ago, trying to break the door open. It won’t work-- it won’t _work_. Someone should tell him that. Does he know? 

Rogers’ still here, though, and there’s a strange look to his eyes. He seems worried. Why is he worried? Doesn’t he know it’s Tony inside the armor?

“Sir, the air supply to the suit will be terminated in ten seconds.”

“Stark--Tony, open the faceplate. Please.” 

Tony blinks his eyes open-- when had they closed? The steady burning feeling in his chest is increasing, like someone kept tossing kindling to the fire. He feels strange--bad. His head hurts and his hair is sticking uncomfortably to his forehead inside the helmet, wet. He feels a drop of sweat run down his face.

Rogers is saying something -- his mouth is moving -- but the mess of sounds that reaches Tony’s ears is just scrambled further in his brain. Like a puzzle with its pieces thrown in the blender -- why would someone put puzzle pieces in a blender? That sounds counterproductive.

Maybe he should focus harder, try to decipher the words that keep pouring out of Rogers’ mouth. 

Maybe--maybe he sho--

His lungs are burning. They’re on fire. He can’t breathe. Why can’t he breathe? Everything is on fire. He jerks his arms forward, brings them up to claw at his throat but they just hit something hard and solid. _He can’t breathe_.

He tips to the side, trying to scramble on the floor, but he can’t make use of his limbs, they’re all heavy and confined, as if he’d been stuffed in concrete. And he can’t escape the sizzling pain in his chest. It _hurts_. It hurts so much. Why is he hurting?

He’s burning, he’s on fire-- he’s drowning. 

There are hands on his head, holding him under, and he opens his mouth to breathe but there’s only water. Water in his eyes, water in his mouth, water in his throat, rushing down to his lungs. They’re drowning him. He’s going to die. He doesn’t want to, but he can’t tell them. He can’t build them what they want. 

He’ll die instead. 

The pain is unbearable, all-consuming, agonizing. But it’s familiar. 

All he needs to do is surrender -- stop fighting, stop struggling -- and it’ll stop hurting. He has to let the water in. 

He does.

It’s cold and dark, _so dark_ \-- but it’s blissfully numb.


End file.
